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Chances are you still have to file your income taxes. You could fill out a paper return, if you're ambitious and not too particular about how much the government pays you back. And tax-preparation services are open practically around the clock, though that usually means sitting in some dreary office while a clerk pries into your financesand paying big for the privilege. No, we're sure that you, the PC Magazine reader, would much rather let technology help you out, in the form of tax-preparation software.

We've reviewed three options for you this tax season; all are capable of getting the job done. All three lead you through the process the way a tax preparer doesafter all, most preparers simply read a script from their computer screens anyhowfor a fraction of the cost. All three companies we consider here offer lower-end software packages, and even online-only services. But since our readers are more likely to be businesspeople than burger-flippers (or if they're burger-flippers, they aspire to something more), we've reviewed the higher-end home and business packages. In any case, the cheaper versions are simply subsets of the larger. Read our reviews and pick a service: It's time to do your taxes.

H&R Block TaxCut Home & Business 2007
This software version of the "I've got people" people's service is a powerful program with lots of options for calculating taxes and doing tax planning. Thanks to an improved interface, cheaper phone support (at $19.95 a call, versus TurboTax's pricey $29.95) and good deduction software, it's making a real run this year at the top tax prep spot occupied for so many years by TurboTax.

TaxAct Deluxe & State 2007
TaxAct is a surprisingly powerful tax prep software package at a budget price. The interface lacks polish and you won't find some of the advanced deduction-finder software that TaxAct's premium competitors include, but the software does offer informative help from tax J.K. Lasser, including free phone support.

TurboTax Home & Business 2007
TurboTax is an impressively complete tax solution for home and business, and it's been our favorite for a while now. Still, Intuit got a black eye at crunch time last year, when last-minute e-filers (you know who you are) overwhelmed its TurboTax servers. No one got penalized for the resulting late e-filings, but neither did the fiasco help the company's reputation. Will an impressively deep dive into your deductions, exhaustive help, and a highly polished interface be enough to fend off TurboTax's challengers?

Twitter: SCarrollPCMag
Sean Carroll is the managing editor of PCMag.com's Software, Internet, and Networking team, which includes all consumer security reviews, game reviews, and SMB software and service reviews. He considers that to mean that he can browse the Internet at work with impunity; plus, he gets to play with the coolest software and games in the world. Before joining PCMag, he was an English teacher, a computer salesman (Macs) and an editor of travel and electronic-warfare magazines.
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